With Google Adwords, Don’t Put All Your Eggs in One Basket
With Google Adwords, Don’t Put All Your Eggs in One Basket
Adwords campaigns have been so successful for some companies that they have almost gained a mythical status among businesses which seem to see them as the answer to all their prayers.
However, it can be an expensive investment and for small companies, it can be a struggle to fund them sufficiently to see a return. On the other hand, designing and optimising landing pages may actually do as much for you, at a fraction of the cost, and make subsequent Adwords campaigns work harder.
Google Adwords Can’t Perform Miracles
Adwords can definitely make a big difference to the traffic driven to your website, and they are very useful when launching a new product, for example, and when you need a very targeted marketing push, or when you have time-sensitive offers, as they can be set up and withdrawn very quickly and scheduled to be active on specific days and times.
It is, in theory, easy to organise an Adwords campaign, however, devising a successful campaign requires specialist knowledge and you would be wise to leave it to an SEO professional or you might end up spending a lot of money for not much result: if you haven’t quite targeted the right keywords, you may attract visitors who were actually looking for something else and weren’t going to buy from you in the first place. And to add insult to injury, you still have to pay for each one who clicked on your sponsored link!
It’s All About Team Work
Now, imagine that you have the perfect Adwords campaign. Visitors click through and you are exactly what they are looking for. Sadly, for a number of reasons, your website doesn’t live up to their expectations and they leave without buying anything. And yes, you’ve guessed right, you still have to pay for the click-through. Ouch…
This is because Search Engine Optimisation is made up of many different cogs, and unless you have an integrated approach, it will not work as well as it should.
Adwords belong to so-called “serial” advertising methods, that is that you will see benefits only as long as you are spending money, and the “after-campaign” effects will be short lived. Your website, on the other hand, is a “cumulative” form of advertising, i.e. it will have a long-lasting impact on your conversion rate, which will continue after you have paid the bill, and the next set of improvements will contribute even further to your marketing plan. So, doesn’t spending some time and money on your website sound like a good idea?
Landing pages, in particular, are a very effective way to fine-tune your SEO strategy. When it comes to optimisation, the principles to follow are the same as for any page, but their great benefit comes from analysing them and refining them to respond to visitors’ behaviour in order to achieve the perfect page that will draw them in and convert them into visitors.
In summary
If your budget is limited, don’t spend it all on Adwords. Set some aside to make sure that your website is up-to-scratch, visually and from an SEO point of view, and use an Adwords campaign as a way to support and improve its results.